Summary

Despite Trump’s criminal record, serial lying, and racist demagoguery, he won the 2024 US presidential election, reflecting America’s deep-seated anxieties and cultural divisions.

Trump’s celebrity persona, economic populism, and culture warrior appeals resonated with his base, while Kamala Harris faced challenges in defining herself and overcoming gender and racial biases.

The election underscores the decay of American democracy, raising concerns about the future of the nation.

241 points

It happened because Americans are easily fooled. This country has had all the evidence of what a total piece of shit this guy is, and they chose not to believe it because he played a business man on a fucking game show. It sucks for anyone who wanted to see America do well.

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124 points

Yup. With the high likelihood that Republicans get the trifecta, this country is about to become a lot more dangerous for my kids, both LGBTQ+, because dipshits believed that a “businessman” whose businesses all fail is good for the economy.

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101 points

Not just the LGTBQ kids. I worry about most kids. Child labor laws were getting more shakey already. Schools and education have been suffering. Healthcare also stands to take a hit. I’m worried.

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82 points

Robert Kennedy is about to be put in charge of American health care and Elon Musk om our federal budget. When Musk said next 4 years was going be tough for the majority of Americans they meant it. Yet still majority voted for Trump.

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38 points
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If they actually move as fast as Trump has promised to, the next four years are going to be absolute chaos. Anything that relies on federal funding will be mired in uncertainty - 23 million people work for federal, state and local governments.

Edit - not to mention the tens of millions more who work for contractors and consultants who have contracts with federal, state, and local agencies

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24 points

Every kid’s future just got worse because of the impending abolition of the EPA (among other things) and shift back to a “drill, baby, drill” approach to climate change.

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6 points

Plus you can kiss education goodbye you can’t get an educated man to go down into a mine. Or blindly obey your authoritarian leader

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4 points

Honestly, I’m going to laugh long and hard at the economic collapse when it comes. These fucking idiot “captains of industry” wanted this. Enjoy the results, I guess. You’ll get a few good quarters, and then absolute, complete chaos.

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2 points

The true captains of industry do want this. chaos is how they transfer wealth from the poor to themselves.

In a depression, the money doesn’t vanish, it goes into the pockets of the super rich.

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54 points

I’m tired of the “fooled innocent Americans” trope. Fuck that. They knew exactly what they did. Face the reality: half of Americans are now trumpists. FACE IT.

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32 points

Yup. It’s the Good German trope from the Nazi era. People knew damn well there was something awful going on.

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2 points

I’ve seen vastly more ignorance than evil in my life, but it seems like some people prefer to feel surrounded by malevolence.

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1 point
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Deleted by creator
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29 points
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Why do you think they are being fooled? If anything I think one of the appeal of Trump is the fact that he owns his corruption and shadiness.

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46 points

this election was lost by single issue voters not showing up.

Some of it is…understandable, albeit self-sabotaging (Gaza, for example,) others are on about abortion or the economy or immigration, taxes.

What they don’t see is that there’s so many issues a proper government needs to balance; and being a single-issue-voter is exactly what lets this happen. The sad truth is gaza is gonna get royally fucked now. Abortion is gonna get banned and women are gonna die; the economy is going to get wrecked so the oligarchs get to buy up all the cheap shit they want, immigrants are gonna get blamed for all of it; including the taxes because the oligarchs are too busy fucking us to pay their own damn taxes.

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39 points

this election was lost by single issue voters not showing up.

Absolutely. Look at the vote totals; not all votes are in, but Trump is actually running a few million behind his 2020 total, while Harris is 15M+ behind what Biden pulled in. Trump doesn’t seem to have much more support than last time, but about 1 out of 7 voters that Biden earned did not vote this time.

The ones who did it over Gaza should prepare to be heartbroken when they see what Bibi and Trump do there next year.

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21 points

The people that refused to vote entirely on the basis of the Gaza have effectively shot themselves, and everyone else, in the foot.

There was never a real choice to stop Israel on the ballet, but now with Trump in office, even deescalation is off the cards.

It must be great for these folks to be able to wash their hands of it like Ponchus Pilot, whilst Trump gives Israel the go-ahead to annhilate the people of Gaza.

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1 point

There are multiple causes.

The main one? Nazis. By about a trillion percent.

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-5 points
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this election was lost by single issue voters not showing up

You mean, the candidate didn’t do her fucking job pandering to the electorate? You mean the democratic machine didn’t take their own rhetoric about democracy being threatened seriously enough to make sure to pander to every corner of the electorate to build the broadest possible coalition? You mean that the shitty electioneering consultants fucked up so much that they created a void for Donald Fucking Trump to show up to Michigan and get imams to endorse him as the “peace candidate”?

If you want to blame voters for electing Trump, blame the fucking white trumpist majority. Not the minorities that the Democrats didn’t deign to try to woo and win their vote.

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-8 points

this election was lost by single issue voters not showing up.

I doubt it, unless their single issue was “can we have a real candidate”. It’s not about one or a few unpopular policies; Harris was just an incompetent, uninspiring corporate slop candidate who made enemies of her voters. I mean look at her campaign, or the lack thereof, and you’ll notice she had a much more fundamental problem than pissing off single issue voters. I mean she lost (or is on the way to losing) all swing states. I am very doubtful that this can be attributed to single issue voters.

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20 points

They weren’t fooled. They knew exactly what he is.

They didn’t care.

That’s the fallacy that us lefties kinda fall into, that if someone was just educated enough or knew enough or could see the facts, the person would change their mind.

The thing is, this was all about trying to get back at the left and minorities. “Fuck you I don’t like the changing world I want my pretend 50s universe with no blacks and gays”

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12 points

And also because his base is a cult. Which would require deprogramming.

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9 points

You say this like they would care if he’s a criminal. I actually think they like that about him. At least a few million of these dickheads do.

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4 points

No, Americans didn’t vote. The same thing happened when he beat Clinton. She went too far right and her base didn’t vote for her.

All blame falls on the Democrats for failing to learn.

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0 points
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I think this is an oversimplification and lets Democrats off the hook.

A large part of how he won is to do with how polarised US politics are. The Democrats and Republicans are polar opposites, to the point that no matter who the candidates are the core voters could never conscience voting for the other side. Some Republicans may hate Trump but they will still vote republican as they see the Democrats standing for things they just don’t agree with (whether that’s Immigration or abortion or conservative values or fiscal conservatism etc). It just takes one; things are so polarised that it’s inbuilt that it’s a binary decision. The Democrats are just as guilty as the Republicans for carving up US democracy between the two of them. If you look at polls, they say 50:50 split but actually thats just “likely voters”; the underlying split is more like 1/3:1/3 with a whole 1/3 of the electorate disenfranchised and not bothering to vote. When they talk about undecideds, they’re talking about 2% of people likely to vote; not the whole 1/3 of the election who don’t vote at all. 3rd parties don’t get a look in, and even get blamed for taking votes from the anointed of the two big parties.

On top of that, the Democrats really fucked up. The party leadership supported Biden running, and no serious candidates stood in the primary race even though he was already clearly a weakened candidate due to age. Then when he was finally persuaded to go at near the last minute, it was too late. They again didn’t have a primary, they had a coronation, and then a short run to establish her. I like Harris but she inherited his team, his set up and was unable and unwilling to paint herself as a change candidate as she wouldn’t criticise the perceived mistakes of her own incumbent white house. She focused on abortion, and could seemingly not address the economy in a meaningful way to appeal to voters.

I don’t think it’s because Americans are easily fooled. I think it’s because both parties have created an extremely polarised political landscape which they have both used to their advantage to suppress 3rd parties and other views across the 50 states. In addition, the Democrat party tried to claim it was an election about “preserving democracy” and yet chose to do that by not enabling democracy in their own party.

Hopefully the Democrats will take a long hard look at themselves. And the good news, a slither of good news, is that in 2028 there will not be any Clintons or Bidens hanging around whose “turn” it is to run. The party can actually have an open primary and the best candidates can stand instead of feeling they shouldn’t run. Would we be in this position if there had been a full primary and the candidate had been someone like Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsome, Josh Shapiro or even just a truly independent run by Harris?

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121 points

All I know is

Gaza is fucked.

Ukraine is fucked.

Black people are fucked.

Women are fucked.

LGBT+ people are fucked.

Everybody’s health care is fucked.

WMass deportation ruining families and affecting the economy.

But hey, at least Elon Musk is happy right?

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81 points

you left out consumer protections, labor laws, overtime, PTO, regulatory oversight, whistleblower protections, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom, the ACLU, the ALA, and everything else you thought was safe

i would say delete all your social media, but it’s not going to matter

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45 points

You left out literally everyone on the planet being fucked over by climate change.

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22 points

Yes fuck you very much America. From the rest of us. You are the worst.

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29 points

Also, rolling back the little the US did to combat climate change, making sure the climate catastrophe will only accelerate in this century.

By the end of the century, the US being a fascist state might not even matter because civilisation as we know it will break down anway, with worldwide temperature rising as far as 5 degrees above preindustrial standards (that’s the worst case scenario of the IPCC).

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10 points

There won’t be another century.

He IS THE ANTICHRIST.

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2 points
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Children are fucked including child marriage laws and probably those conversion therapy camps

Education is fucked, like really fucked

The public library is fucked

Museums are fucked

NOAA is fucked

It’s honestly shocking but not. The rich have known about climate change since the 70s and again in 2000. They are simply Noah’s Arking us to climate change and pulling up the ladder now while making us think we chose this. It’s the Titanic sub all over again - their ego and hubris makes them think they can bend science to their will. They want to kill us (long reason for this is due to how narcissism works) and think they are so perfect they will survive. Musk wasn’t making Mars homes, he was making those for earth. He’s sending people to space in case a bunch of nukes or bombs go off, so they can come back and repopulate the earth. These rich people have insane views about life fed by confirmation bias they had their entire lives along with bootlicking.

We are fucked unless some really really smart people can figure some shit out.

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97 points

Don’t call it fear. It’s hate. Plain and simple hate.

They hate minorities.

They hate women.

They hate lgbt+.

They hate anyone that’s “not like them”.

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37 points

they also hate themselves.

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11 points

Well, they have a good goddamn reason for that.

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10 points

Hate is a result of fear and not a primary emotion.

Don’t give them credit for their fucking strong madam pose. They are just a bunch of angsty people and vote out of fear.

But in a world in crisis, because of climate change and resulting conflicts, people always get fearful and try to vote for people who say, that’s they will protect them.

It’s just fear at the base

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15 points
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No, it’s hate.

The orange cunt said openly that he wants mass deportations, that he wouldn’t care if someone shot at the press, he endorses violents like the ones who assaulted the capitol, he is against any kind of difference from the white supremacism. That is hate, and the people who voted for him, voted for this. Fear for their economy? Sure, but if you decide to vote for a guy who thinks this way against who is different, your fear for the economy is worth shit, you are ready to let others die (or even indirectly kill them), and that’s hate.

edit: typos

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74 points

They had four years to find him guilty of an insurrection, disqualify him from running, and put his ass in jail. They should not be a surprise to anyone.

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18 points

The Democrats impeached him twice but there was no way he was ever going to be convicted with the Senate in its then-state. Meanwhile, his lawyers and Judge Cannon have been doing nothing but delaying until checks watch now! Unless you have an idea for speeding up the American judicial system? If there was enough support from any state to straight up not let him run, then they would have done so. But as we’ve seen, 40% of the American voting populace have the intelligence of a kindergartner and just votes for “the other party” when the economy isn’t doing well.

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7 points

Real talk, it’s so sad watching idiots idiot in spite of their goals and dreams.

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1 point

Some don’t care, and some don’t have the energy to. This is by design.

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54 points

It happened because the DNC is detached from the concerns of Americans. They’re certainly better than the alternative but they have become extremely complacent.

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30 points
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I think its half that. The Dems need a reckoning.

But the other half is that they don’t play dirty like Trump. They don’t understand that engagement is all that matters, lying does not, because us Americans have the critical thinking ability of an ant.

If they want to win, they need their own reality distortion field.

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30 points

The Dems got a reckoning in 2016 when their career politician Hillary Clinton lost to Trump.

Nothing is going to shake them out of their ways.

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6 points

Democrats suck at politics. Frustrating when their candidates are the only ones that come even close to aligning with my values.

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Spending the first like 2 months campaigning on how she doesn’t care about certain demographics’ vote (primarily arab and college-age voters, and avoiding any popular policy discussion (only focusing on ways they were shifting further right) until the week of election probably didn’t help. Trump got the majority of 1st time voters this cycle. Biden got 64%.

And, just like her campaign, her voters did little but try to insult people. What a surprise… insulting people doesn’t convince people to vote for you or your candidate.

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23 points

And, just like her campaign, her voters did little but try to insult people. What a surprise… insulting people doesn’t convince people to vote for you or your candidate.

Unless you are Trump.

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But he insulted others. He hardly was as vitriolic towards his base demographic.

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